The silent STD

May 24, 2004|By Tribune Newspapers.

20 million Americans infected with HPV

If you're a woman, you may have received the phone call or made the phone call. There's a bump ... down there. Or maybe you had an irregular pap smear. You find out it's the sexually transmitted disease HPV (human papilloma virus). It's scary and embarrassing. You have a million questions. Will it go away? Is this the end of sex? Are you going to get cervical cancer?

You start the phone chain. Friends weigh in with the information they've read in Glamour magazine. Some confide they have it too. But you didn't think you were the type of person to get it. You were wrong.

"If you look around in a room of women, pretty much everyone in the room has had an HPV infection," said Eileen Dunne, a medical epidemiologist in the Division of Sexually Transmitted Diseases Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

The numbers are staggering. About 20 million Americans--men and women--are infected, and about 5.5 million people become newly infected each year. By age 50, at least 80 percent of women will have had it. Half of all sexually active men and women will have HPV at some point in their lives, according to the CDC.

Despite the fact that it's the most common STD in the U.S., there is a surprising amount of misinformation attached to it. There are more than 100 different types of HPV, of which 30 are STDs. Genital HPV is a skin infection that's transmitted by genital skin-to-skin contact.

Where HPV represents a grave danger is in women whose infection causes the growth of abnormal cells in the cervix. Undetected and untreated, the condition can lead to cervical cancer, which afflicted 12,000 women last year. Half of those had never had a pap test, which doctors recommend be done annually to catch the disease in its early stages.

Last year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a test for HPV that can be done during a pap test. It's recommended for women older than 30. HPV vaccines are in trials now and could be available by 2006.

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HPV facts vs. myths

Myth: It's transmittable from the toilet.

Fact: You can only contract human papilloma virus from genital to skin contact.

Myth: It never goes away.

Fact: While there is no cure, most infections cause no clinical problems and go away on their own without treatment.

Myth: Condoms protect against HPV.

Fact: There is no protection against HPV, but condoms do reduce the risk of the infection.

Myth: A person infected with HPV always has a breakout.

Fact: Most people who have HPV don't know because they never get any symptoms.